Possible solution to the problem of multiple account bounty dumping

poor · 2014-03-31 14:05:39

It seems that every way of doing this involves the multiple accounts entering multiple houses consecutively.

I propose tracking consecutive entries and using these as parameters for another "forced ignore". Let's use an example with players A, B, C, D, and E.

Assume A and B are colluding to perform a bounty dump. One way to do this is for A to rob C's house, buy tons of tools, and purposely die in the now-solved house. B then robs the same house. It is possible for D or E to enter in the intervening time, but this is unlikely given the short time between robberies. Repeat the process in D's house and E's house.

Once this happens enough times, we have a clear pattern. B almost always enters a house after A. If this is done in houses that are trivial to solve, we can reduce the opportunity for bounty-dumping by implementing a short forced-ignore on both A and B of any house the other has visited. This can start at, say, 5 minutes if there is little correlation between their entries, and would gradually increase every time they enter consecutively. If it happens often enough, this forced-ignore could eventually reach several hours.

So now, instead of repeatedly visiting other people's trivial houses, A and B are forced to use a house that is actually difficult to solve without inside knowledge, as someone else can come into the house in the intervening time. Importantly, they will have to find or construct a new non-trivial house, under a different account, every time they make a transaction.

Of course, they could still always buy more accounts, but eventually those accounts would end up with the same problem.

The benefits of this are:

- bounty dumping is unsustainable and becomes less practical the more often it is used
- this would require no changes to the client
- players not engaging in bounty dumping would be unaffected, or at the (unlikely) worst, not see some houses for a few extra minutes

Possible problems:

- requires keeping track of more metadata on the server (though this seems like it would not be much compared to the data already on the server)
- anything I haven't thought of

tigerbalm immunity · 2014-03-31 17:20:16

great idea... i haven't thought of anything you haven't thought of

jasonrohrer · 2014-04-02 09:04:10

Well, I'm not so worried about the above scenario, because it still requires SKILL in defeating the C, D, and E houses which are not colluding with A and B. The method you describe involves exercising skill, and skimming a little bit of extra money out of that skill (the bounty) than would otherwise be possible. But to skim more money (from D or E's house) requires more skill to be applied, and more risk too.

All of my effort has gone into any skill-free and risk-free method of making unbounded money in the game. Like, ways that A and B could go back and forth with each other, without skill or risk, and build up lots of money.

You could say, "Yeah, but, what if C, D, and E are in on it?" I think the difficulty of operating a collusion pool grows super-linearly with the size of that pool. Or even if you're operating N fake accounts yourself, that still costs N times as much money as one account...

Right now, the only way to gain an unbounded amount of money in the game without skill is:

1. Collude with an unbounded number of other people.

2. Wait for an unbounded amount of time (for chills to wear off, etc.)

Or at least, it should be that way... I'm looking for loopholes that violate this assumption.

poor · 2014-04-02 11:07:49

It was never really possible to create an unbounded amount of money in the first place; each entry or death still took a small amount of time.

Bounty farming might take some skill, but it's a comparatively small amount for a decent reward. There are plenty of low-money or broken houses that can be robbed, plenty of weakly defended families, and I have seen houses that are empty except for vault and family at least once a day.

I'm making some assumptions about bounties here, possibly incorrectly:
- each family member killed adds $1000
- each successful robbery adds $500

Just in the time it's taken to write this post, I've entered:

1 empty house with 3 family members: $3500 bounty
1 empty house with $800 and 3 family members: $3900 bounty and tools
1 house with family by the door: $3000 bounty
1 house with children by the door: $2000 bounty

Assuming all those bounties are correct and apply immediately, that's $12500 in bounties and bought tools, and would take about 10 minutes to do with minimal risk. The robber can die in one of the empty houses or in a broken house to drop the bounty, meaning this is only limited by the turnover rate of empty/broken houses. Sure, it's not unlimited, but it takes little skill or time and it allows anyone with access to two accounts to build a house without having to keep any money around to attract robbers or finance his own robberies. Whenever he needs more, he can just rob the bottom of the list with his second account, go and die somewhere, and pick up the few thousand in bounties with his first account.

He can also circumvent death, to some extent, by keeping his second account in the first account's house when going out robbing. He's unlikely to do that, though, because it would be easier to just steal from himself, use that to buy tools, and attempt the robbery with the scond account instead of the first. Either way, he's never at risk of losing everything, because he can store money in the form of bounties rather than in his vault.

Immhotep · 2014-04-02 12:07:58

poor wrote:

It was never really possible to create an unbounded amount of money in the first place; each entry or death still took a small amount of time.
Bounty farming might take some skill, but it's a comparatively small amount for a decent reward. There are plenty of low-money or broken houses that can be robbed, plenty of weakly defended families, and I have seen houses that are empty except for vault and family at least once a day.
I'm making some assumptions about bounties here, possibly incorrectly:
- each family member killed adds $1000
- each successful robbery adds $500
Just in the time it's taken to write this post, I've entered:
1 empty house with 3 family members: $3500 bounty
1 empty house with $800 and 3 family members: $3900 bounty and tools
1 house with family by the door: $3000 bounty
1 house with children by the door: $2000 bounty
Assuming all those bounties are correct and apply immediately, that's $12500 in bounties and bought tools, and would take about 10 minutes to do with minimal risk. The robber can die in one of the empty houses or in a broken house to drop the bounty, meaning this is only limited by the turnover rate of empty/broken houses. Sure, it's not unlimited, but it takes little skill or time and it allows anyone with access to two accounts to build a house without having to keep any money around to attract robbers or finance his own robberies. Whenever he needs more, he can just rob the bottom of the list with his second account, go and die somewhere, and pick up the few thousand in bounties with his first account.
He can also circumvent death, to some extent, by keeping his second account in the first account's house when going out robbing. He's unlikely to do that, though, because it would be easier to just steal from himself, use that to buy tools, and attempt the robbery with the scond account instead of the first. Either way, he's never at risk of losing everything, because he can store money in the form of bounties rather than in his vault.

Once he left his house to kill someone, won't others rob him off?

The Castle Doctrine Forums

#1 2014-03-31 14:05:39

Possible solution to the problem of multiple account bounty dumping

#2 2014-03-31 17:20:16

Re: Possible solution to the problem of multiple account bounty dumping

#3 2014-04-02 09:04:10

Re: Possible solution to the problem of multiple account bounty dumping

#4 2014-04-02 11:07:49

Re: Possible solution to the problem of multiple account bounty dumping

#5 2014-04-02 12:07:58

Re: Possible solution to the problem of multiple account bounty dumping

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